Elon Musk made the case for SpaceX using the most ordinary objects a person can name. Musk: “Every mode of transport is reusable, without which is simply not viable as a transport system.” Cars are reusable. Planes are reusable. Boats are reusable. Horses are reusable. Bicycles are reusable. Every... vehicle humans have ever built was designed to be used more than once. Except rockets. For decades, the aerospace industry built machines worth hundreds of millions of dollars, launched them once, and let them sink into the ocean. Musk: “Cars, planes, boats, horses, bicycles are all obviously reusable.” The first rockets came out of missile programs, where discarding the hardware was the point. The industry inherited that assumption and treated expendability as a law of physics rather than a failure of engineering. SpaceX applied the rule that already governed everything else. The concept was old. The application was overdue. Falcon 9 has landed hundreds of times. Starship is built to fly, land, and fly again. The hardest conventions to challenge are the ones already in place before you arrive. Nobody questions them because nobody remembers choosing them. The person who finally asks usually ends up owning the field.show more

Dustin

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